


Flowers Of Flesh And Blood

by kaijuvenom



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Established Relationship, M/M, Medical Trauma, Temporary Character Death, The Borg, Vorta society is fucked up yall, Weyoun talks too much, and sometimes that’s a good thing, and they were ROOMMATES, once again I am giving Keevan trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29764239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijuvenom/pseuds/kaijuvenom
Summary: Keevan relives the time one of his previous clones was assimilated by the Borg, and Weyoun, his totally-platonic-and-definitely-not-partner-because-that-would-go-against-the-Founder’s-laws roommate has the unique ability to help him cope with the trauma—without even realizing he’s doing it.
Relationships: Keevan/Weyoun (Star Trek)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	Flowers Of Flesh And Blood

**Author's Note:**

> _Pick your favorite shade of black, you’d best prepare a speech. Say something funny, say something sweet, but don’t say that you loved me._

He could get used to the paranoia, the nightmares, the phantom pains in his limbs where the implants had gone into his past clone, and even the aversion he had towards neon green lights that was so strong he felt physically ill if he looked into one. But what Keevan couldn’t get used to was the loneliness.

The voices, they were gone, replaced by nothing but an overwhelming, crushing feeling of emptiness. Loss. Right before he fell asleep, as he laid in bed in the dark, that was when it was the worst, the most unbearable. He could make it through the days alright, there was never a shortage of background noise in the form of meaningless conversation when you lived with Weyoun. And sometimes, Keevan would just talk to himself.

But now, here, alone in bed with Weyoun asleep beside him, he felt like the entire world had fallen away and his existence was no more meaningful than that of a speck of dust, floating through the air forever. 

He was beginning to wish Weyoun snored, or at least moved around, but Keevan knew from experience that Weyoun slept like the dead, and he would have more luck straining his ears for the sounds of insects or birdcalls outside, through the soundproofed walls, than he would trying to get Weyoun to make any audible noises while sleeping.

He ran a hand across the side of his face, expecting to feel metal there, painfully shoved into his skin and making his vision shake. 

********

“My name is Keevan. I represent the Dominion. Please state your purpose for trespassing on our territory.”

A being, one which looked partially cybernetic, arms and head filled with metal augments of sorts, responded to the hail, figure appearing on the viewscreen. It spoke in a fragmented voice, as if it was many tones talking at once, in perfect unison.

“We are Borg. You will be assimilated.”

“Assimilated?” Keevan repeated. “I appreciate the offer, but no, thank you.” He gestured to his Jem’Hadar first, indicating for him to cut off the communication. 

“Launch torpedoes. Target...” He gestured to the Borg cube on their viewscreen. “Whatever looks like their weapons system.” 

The Jem’Hadar didn’t get the chance to acknowledge Keevan’s request, their systems went down almost immediately after Keevan spoke, and the ship was taken so quickly it was almost laughable. 

Keevan was brought to a room on the Borg ship, alone, without even a single Jem’Hadar guard, the only thing to keep him company was an empty surgery table, stained with blood, an omen of what was to come. 

He should’ve activated his termination implant then, it would’ve saved him so much pain, but he thought he’d get himself out alive. Had some naive hope that he could make his way out of this situation. 

He couldn’t. And he hadn’t. He remembered every minute of what the Borg had done to him, the piercing, throbbing pain as they’d strapped him down, removed his eye, attached some sort of implant inside of him, and the slow, torturous process of lifting the skin and tissues of his arm, pulling it apart and putting it back together again. The implant in his eye made it impossible for him to close his eyes, to block out the pulsing green light. The robotic noises of movement, occasional sound of machinery, sometimes flesh, probably his own, hitting the floor. The drip of his blood off the edge of the table and onto the floor. 

The Borg took out his termination implant, ripped it directly out of his neck, and when they were finally done with him, he could hear them. 

He could hear everyone. As if every being in the galaxy was speaking to him, words and memories and images, fragments of the people they used to be before they themselves were forced into what they were currently doing to Keevan. The agony faded into background noise and he sat up. The voices continued to speak in his mind, muddling together without forming anything coherent, until he received his first order. 

Although it wasn’t exactly an order, it was a thought. A thought injected directly into his mind by someone else, by everyone else, and he obeyed it without question. 

It was almost euphoric, at first. To listen to the voices and hear them speak back, to feel himself slipping away, his name vanishing, his life of slavery to the Founders being exchanged for something better, something that made him truly whole. 

It was only a few days after that that Keevan had died. Vorta bodies weren’t meant to stand up to torture, to medical procedures. They were designed to shut down after a certain level of physical stress was put on them. The only thing about the Vorta that was important was their mind, that was the only thing that went from one clone to the next. So of course measures were taken to prevent torture from causing a Vorta’s brain to break. 

Keevan’s body rejected the implants, and he died on the Borg ship, and woke up in a Vorta cloning facility. It was so empty. He couldn’t hear them. He couldn’t hear any of them. 

The implants were gone, the voices were gone, the blinding green light was gone, this was a new body, untarnished and untouched by the Borg, and he was safe. 

But he was so,  so  empty. He went home to Weyoun and didn’t receive much of a welcome, and it was comforting how normal he was, but the second Keevan made it through the threshold and managed to shut the front door behind him, he collapsed in a heap, shaking violently. 

“Keevan?” Weyoun rushed towards him, kneeling down to look him in the eye. “Did you leave too quickly after you were activated? You know you’re supposed to wait at least an hour before...”

Weyoun kept talking, more like lecturing, and it was a poor substitute from the warm embrace of voices from the brief time he’d existed as a Borg, but it was something, and he clung to that. And he kept clinging to it, as weeks passed until he realized, as he lied in bed with Weyoun fast asleep beside him, how broken he truly felt. 

Eventually, he couldn’t take it, and he shook Weyoun awake, looking for a way to distract himself. It took several long seconds for Weyoun re-enter the world of the living, and then even longer for him to sit up, rub his eyes, and turn a lamp on. 

“What’s wrong?” He mumbled, brushing a hand through his hair. 

For a moment, Keevan considered telling him. He considered confiding in Weyoun about everything he’d gone through, the pain he felt, the loneliness, and he wondered if Weyoun might relate to it at all. Weyoun must’ve had at least one traumatizing death, he  had  to understand at least part of what Keevan was going through, but at the last second he changed his mind. Weyoun could only take so much. The concept of being traumatized by a past death, however real the idea was for most Vorta, was considered to be bordering on blasphemous. And Keevan and Weyoun already participated in enough blasphemy, as much as Keevan assumed Weyoun could handle without deactivating himself for being defective, or reporting Keevan. 

They weren’t supposed to be sleeping in the same bed together, much less be doing most of the things in that bed that they did together. 

So instead of risking his already-strained relationship with Weyoun, he shook his head once and brought his gaze down Weyoun’s lips, the curve of his ear, resting on his neck. He tilted his head. He could use a distraction, he supposed.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Keevan answered, and swung his leg over Weyoun straddling him and staring into his eyes, squinting slightly in the low light. “I was thinking about you.” He wasn’t sure if Weyoun would buy it, but appealing to his vanity had always worked in the past. If Weyoun thought Keevan had been thinking about him so much, so desperately, that he hadn’t been able to sleep and had been forced to wake Weyoun just to do this, he might not think too hard about it. He might not question it. 

Weyoun searched his face, mouth forming a tight line as he thought. “You weren’t,” he finally said, and Keevan blinked in surprise, reading his head back. 

“I was,” Keevan insisted, taking Weyoun’s wrist, “let me prove it to you.”

Before Keevan could do anything of the sort, Weyoun pulled his wrist away and crossed his arms, jostling Keevan on his lap as he , glared at him. “You weren’t,” he insisted. “You aren’t aroused at all, your heart rate is normal, you aren’t flushed, your pupils aren’t blown. And even if you were, you have far too much pride than to wake me up to tell me you can’t sleep because you want me so badly.” 

So, it backfired. Keevan let out a breath of air and flopped against Weyoun’s chest, purposefully smacking into him too hard, perhaps as a punishment for Weyoun not letting him get away with his lie. 

“Either tell me why you woke me up, or let me go back to sleep,” Weyoun said, weakly trying to push Keevan off of him and failing dramatically. 

“No,” Keevan mumbled, voice muffled against Weyoun’s pajama shirt. He felt Weyoun shift beneath him and braced himself to be pushed away again, but instead Weyoun was wrapping his arms around Keevan’s torso, holding him gently.

“Then tell me what to do. I won’t make you tell me why.”

“You’ll torment me about it.”

“I won’t.”

There were times, much more often than he’d like to admit, that Keevan wondered what he was doing with Weyoun, if they actually liked each other or if they just relished in the company, a warm body to hold, a fellow defective Vorta, but not one either would choose to be around if the situation were any different. 

And then there were times like this, rarer than an orsanian tree mole, that they understood each other, syncing perfectly without having to explain anything, and those moments were perhaps even more disturbing than the times they got into a particularly bad fight and Keevan would end up thinking,  well, this is the day he turns me in to the Founders as defective. 

But now, Keevan chose to embrace it without question, without fear. He had a enough fear in his mind already without letting Weyoun add to it.

“Just talk,” Keevan said, his eyes slipping shut.

“About what?”

“Anything. Everything. Doesn’t matter. I need to hear a voice.”

So, Weyoun talked. It didn’t matter what he was saying, he could’ve been speaking ten different languages and Keevan wouldn’t have noticed. It was a voice, only one, but it would have to be good enough. 

It wasn’t enough to drive away the nightmares, but it got him to sleep. Weyoun didn’t mention it the next day, and if he had, Keevan would’ve blamed it on being half-asleep and changed the subject. 

Eventually, Keevan’s fear of quiet coupled with his fear of loneliness transformed into a terrible fear of dying alone, of dying for the Founders and waking up in a cloning facility and starting his life over again as if nothing had happened, as if everything he’d done before didn’t matter. 

It wasn’t that a death for the Borg collective was any better than the Founders, they operated the same way, brainwash and torture and codependence, and perhaps that was what spurred on Keevan’s hatred for the Founders. The fact that nothing was better, nothing was worse. He had no options. 

All Keevan had was a tiny house with two bedrooms, one of which was never used, and a relationship with Weyoun that was more stale contempt than genuine caring.

**Author's Note:**

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